Always an Adventure...

What better to fill some time than a few holiday quizzes... You're welcome to leave your results in the comments if you take any of these quizzes. What The Holidays Mean to You For you, the holidays are a very spiritual time. You have as much holiday fun as everyone else - but you never forget what you're celebrating. You celebrate the holidays in a offbeat style. You believe the holidays are for doing whatever you feel like - and some of your "traditions" are pretty wacky. During the holidays, you feel magical. You love all of the decorations and how happy people are. You like to sit back and take it all in. You think the holidays should be decadent and indulgent. You never mind gaining a few holiday pounds... it's worth it! Your best holiday memories are of childhood foods and traditions. You secretly still wish you believed in Santa Claus. What Do the Holidays Mean to You? I think this one is pretty accurate. A mix of traditional, spiritual and my own random un...

Mouse over pictures for captions. More pics coming soon!

I hope you have a great holiday this year! Mine so far has been lovely, and activity-filled. In honor of the holiday, I wanted to share my top 5 Christmas memories. Christmas Eve My parents always have a huge party on Christmas Eve, complete with food, music, etc. They invite friends of the family and people who have no family around so they have something to do on Christmas Eve. It usually starts right after church and goes until midnight or later! Us kids started inviting friends out too. I remember one when I was in high school when there must have been 30 people in our house! Some traditions were created as certain guests brought the same things every year. Later I found out that one of the reasons they started doing it was to keep the kids occupied so they wouldn't be begging to open gifts all night. Christmas Tree I've had a lot of different types of Christmas trees, including my tiny one here that was mailed to me. Tammy and I used to drive out into the bush and load s...

My weekly commute has taken an interesting turn with more travel options opening up all the time. There's a large tunnel that shortens the route from Yilan to Taipei an d it has recently begun to allow buses to go through. Before I usually took the train (223 one way or 402 round trip), later I sometimes took a taxi (250 one way) which only takes about 50 minutes to the train's hour and forty minutes. Now not one, but two competing bus companies will get you there in an hour and a half for about 130NT. And FINALLY, they are allowing sleigh rides through the tunnel! Did I get you there? Ok so Santa didn't really drive me to Taipei, but my thin, beardless, Taiwanese bus driver was dressed in a Santa suit, just for the fun of it I suppose! In any case I'm here in Taipei now until Tuesday! I'm so thankful that I get a long weekend-ish and a chance to celebrate Christmas. I was told we're supposed to wear Christmas colors tomorrow! So it begins.... Oh and speakin...

Last Sunday we had an English Christmas party at church! It was fun but a little stressful as I was organizing/leading it! It reminded me of some of the things we used to do in youth group...except that I wasn't one of the students! It was the first of hopefully many English services. It went really well I think, we had a great time! We sang Christmas songs, watched a movie, played games, and I gave a message! That was the scariest part perhaps, though it went well despite a few translation difficulties. After we finished there was a discussion time and then we had snacks! I made about 80 cookies and they didn't last that long... well I guess there were about 60 people who went! Someone 'confessed' to me that she had eaten 3! You can see more pictures of the day here . Christmas is coming fast, and I spent the morning doing songs and gift exchanges with my classes! I'm heading to Taipei as usual on Wednesday night after spending the afternoon judging a drama compet...

Here's a fun googling meme lifted from Amanda 's blog! 1. age at next birthday 2. A place I'd like to travel I've wanted to go to Thailand for a while now! someday... 3. Favorite Place The good old Canadian rockies! 4. Favorite Thing It was so hard to choose a favorite thing, so at the moment, let's say Christmas! 5. Favorite food 6. Favorite Color blue! everyone knows this right? 7. Favorite flower Orchids and Calla lilies both of which grow here in Taiwan! 8. Town you live in Here's what looks like an aerial shot of Yilan 9. Name of a past pet Our little puppy in Yuli, named for his color! 10. Nickname With not quite the same pronunciation LOL 11. college major I love this first graphc, which really did come up when I googled TESOL! 12. first job

10 more days until Christmas!! I'm getting excited already, especially with the first Christmas activities happening this week. On Monday night there was a huge Christmas rally at my school (over 1000 people where there) and tomorrow I'll be having a smaller Christmas party at my church! I'll post pictures when I can! So many things to say.. first I updated my links and added 3 more great blogs of awesome women in Taiwan.. you should definitely check them out! I've been baking up a storm for my Christmas party (and for the parties I'll have with my students). AND I actually get Christmas off this year! I'll be spending the weekend in Taipei, and hopefully doing lots of fun stuff! I'll have more interesting things to report after tomorrow.

Courtesy of my cell phone!! I got a new cell phone recently, that's a little more high tech, it can play mp3's and take pictures, along with some other random things... so I've been snapping some random pictures.. of the Christmas tree and decorations at work! Of nice sunsets at the MRT station. Of fun and unusual things like these (delicious) tiny bananas I bought. Of DaZhi bridge in Taipei Of a rainbow!! And of course of my dessert! mmm This week has been quite eventful, including a murder mystery and a Christmas Bazaar, more on that when I get some pictures from my friends!